Black artists make history

October 09, 2003|By The Boston Globe.

For the first time in the 50-year history of the Billboard charts, all Top 10 songs in the country last week were by black artists--signaling the culmination of hip-hop's ascent as the dominant force in popular music and culture.

Rap music is now embraced across the radio dial and across the nation by a diverse, multiracial fan base. Rappers are pop stars, pop stars rap, and the sound is as integral to the cultural landscape as country music or rock.

"There have been moments in history when black music has exploded in the consciousness of the country, like Motown in the mid-'60s. What's so interesting in this case is that hip-hop has become the new mainstream," said cultural critic Nelson George, author of "Hip-Hop America."

Hip-hop's popularity is hardly new. The audience for rap music--as well as the genre's influence on white culture and music--has been growing steadily for more than 20 years. In the last half decade, however, the sound has crossed from largely urban-format radio stations to Top 40 stations--a shift that reflects the listening tastes of the broadest swath of young, active music consumers, according to Geoff Mayfield, director of charts and senior analyst at Billboard magazine.

"There's a vacuum in music made by white kids for white kids," said Arthur Kempton, author of "Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music." "White pop and rock is fragmented into so many different strains and when that happens, black music fills the vacuum. Today, 70 percent of hip-hop is bought by white kids."

Although it's unprecedented to see black artists in all Top 10 spots, the charts have been heavily represented by such performers for many months. The last time black artists so dominated the charts was in May 1972, when the eight top songs were by black artists.

Top 10

The Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 list, as it appears in the Oct. 11 issue: